Posts: 1,525 Location: Sydney, Australia
Sun 11 Mar, 2012 11:02 pm
and, since the archers were in 'wings' flanking the English men at arms, if the french had started engaging the English men at arms before the archers dove into the melee, then this would have resulted in the archers appearing on the FLANKS of the french men at arms, which makes life very difficult for the french since part of the formation is trying to break down the infantry then all of a sudden they find themselves set upon by a swarm of men arms with lead mallets, falchions, rondels and bucklers. as well as hatchets and other miscellaneous weapons, this might have also served to ease the pressure on the English knights, meaning they might not have been worn down quite so quickly by the french press. and would have been able to hold on longer
also, note that while the french would have been battered and tired by trudging through the mud in harness. the archers , having fired , collectively, about 200.000
arrows or so with bows 90+ pound draaw weight, combine the disease and hunger that had been dogging henrys army prior to the battle, the english archers joining the fray were not exactly fresh.
i also tentetively present the idea that should a man in harness fall down in the mud, he'd have a very hard time getting back up again. due to the mud sucking at the plates on the harness.
but at the same time the english executed a sizable number of prisoners, suggesting the english didnt need to kill too many men
another thing to consider
to borrow from the movies for a moment, but this seems to also make sense based on general crowd dynamics,
the scene im borrowing from is the movie king arther, where on the forzen lake, they shoot at the flanks of the men on the
shieldwall, this causes the men to suddenly huddle in closer. making the formation more compact.
if the archers are on the wings at
agincourt, and partially shooting at the sides of the french formation,
hitting the sides of the french would cause them to instinctively move inwards so as to gain better protection from their comrades, this might cause the french formation to compact itself before closing with the english. this might make it easier for the archers to envelop the french forces when they entered the melee.
this slowly tightening formation might also increase the chances that the next volley of
arrows will score more impacts.